Posts Tagged ‘corporate america’

My company is not known for coddling its employees with comfort. We don’t get free coffee or free spring water. There are no free snacks sitting in the kitchen for an afternoon pick-me-up. The majority of the employees do not work in attractive work spaces. We don’t have nice views. In fact, many of us don’t have a view at all or even a window. We do have decent cubicles, a nice chair, and our own phones, which is enough to get you through the day as long as you don’t stuck staring at the gray walls for too long (why would anybody choose gray paint!).

I have accepted these conditions without complaint for 12 years, but I draw the line at a lack of air conditioning. I got to work at 8am. The humidity was already enough to start a little hair frizz and with a high temp expected at around 90 degrees, it was already in the 80’s at that time. I walked in from my car, dodging goose poop the whole way (despite nary a goose in sight), climbed the stairs to the second floor, walked a short hallway and entered my office area to be hit by a wall of stuffy heat. It was literally 10 degrees warmer at my desk than it was the hallway, and the temperature kept climbing as more people showed up and powered up computers. A work order was submitted and 3 hours later, I heard the hum of the a/c and the office cooled down.

During this time, we are expected to continue working at normal productivity levels. Seriously. Now, it could have been worse, but when you are hot and uncomfortable and everyone else around you is talking about the heat, it’s difficult to do any critical thinking.

This experience was certainly not my first at this company where the temperature was not quite right. I’ve experienced many hot rooms. I’ve seen the use of portable a/c units. I’ve endured humidity that made you feel like you’re in the rain forest. I even moved to a new building in the winter where it took them 2 weeks to figure out that the heat didn’t kick back on until 10am, consequently, leaving us all freezing for several hours every morning. All that combined with leaky roofs, power outages and the occasional mouse problem makes me wonder how much my employer really values my comfort.

Right now, I’m eating my lunch in a nice cool office space getting ready to forget about all this negativity until the next a/c problem. Now if only the guy hammering in the room below me would stop and take his lunch break… I could get some work done.